


So it Ends

by Kara_Eclipse



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2017-10-07
Packaged: 2019-01-10 01:30:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12288360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kara_Eclipse/pseuds/Kara_Eclipse
Summary: Maglor and Galadriel through the years from Maglor's perspective.





	So it Ends

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Erulissë (NanaAdder)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NanaAdder/gifts).
  * Inspired by [It Started Out As A Feeling](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11994519) by [Erulissë (NanaAdder)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NanaAdder/pseuds/Eruliss%C3%AB). 



> This kind of just wanders a bit and was written as a direct response to Erulissë's 'It Started Out As A Feeling' Chapter 2. I would definitely suggest you read that one as well or before this one, but I think it can stand alone.

They were safe, were they not? Those who had been left behind on shores too far to see who were far more worthy to be held safe than us the nonbelievers. Once we may have believed for a moment, too brief a moment to be sure, that we were safe and able to live in the light. Yet now… now it is all too clear that such sanctuary and safety is nothing more than a dream while the dark one is free to wander the world. Perhaps that is why when we were asked to swear our lives into a doom and into darkness the words flowed so smoothly. Of course many deemed such an action unwise. You were among the ones who disapproved were you not Artanis? Now though you should be safe, safe and well under the guiding influence of our uncle and of the Valar. I almost envy you that safety yet my pride, my love and my loyalty rebel against such thoughts.  
A frantic cry outside the tent brought startling and painful awareness back to my mind and I remembered just how much has been lost in so short a time. To lose myself in such warm and golden memories while there was such a cruel and powerful blade hovering over my neck was simple foolishness. Even if those golden memories gave me strength, but no never again will I hold you safe and secure from the prying eyes of our family in what they deemed a game. Even if you’d allow me to touch you now I deem that too much blood has covered my hands, even if I dared to claim it as being in defense of my life and the lives of my kin. Armor doesn’t float well you know, but then again you were there weren’t you. Still maybe someday I shall regain that lost privilege and hold you once more.

He is gone you know, dead I hope but perhaps an even worse fate and he still lives, regardless I shall have to live with my decision of leaving him there. It is treason to abandon one’s king like that yet that is what I did. I wonder what you would say to know that I was forced to make such a choice. Sometimes I try to reach out to you, foolish I know, but it is one of the few comforts left to me for Tyelcormo is often out hunting and scouting and the others have all found their own tasks. I dare say that I am resented for not doing more now though I have been told it is simply in my own mind such things exist. Would you share that thought? That my doubts are truly nothing or would you perhaps agree that they exist and try to help me deal with them? Regardless of what you would do I know now that you deserved far better than the paltry love I was able to offer you.  
I wonder if you feel betrayed now, for our burning the ships that is. If so would it change anything to know that we almost lost the twins, one from the flames and the other from the pain and grief the first loss would have wrought? It was for safety you know. People shall never learn of it though, better for their will and morale to think it was for spite than because to do otherwise would have lost more people than the initial crossing, and the wrath we brought upon ourselves did. Maybe you guessed or perhaps you too shall never know either way I know not and I pray that you remained there in Aman yet at the same time I wish you were here for me to speak to, as a friend I can exchange idea with.  
There has been a change though, among all who came here on the ships. One I see now though I failed to notice sooner, a darkness and a coolness has shroud our minds and hearts. While on the surface it is as open and welcoming a company as one could wish there is this desperation to accomplish something of note. Also a fear, for one does not fall into such darkness as that which lurks in one’s own heart and come out unscathed. Yet again I am so very glad that you all remained behind and will not have to suffer this shadowed existence that we live through here. Something makes me doubt this though. I doubt that those we left behind truly did remain there and while I hope to be right I dread seeing you, well any of our family but especially you, here before me once again particularly in these lands that have been ignored for so long by their supposed keepers.

It seemed that you had lost your mind to seek out the kin of those whose blood covers our hands, and yet somehow I wondered if there were other motives for it. There was painfully little time for me to spare for such notions though. At the forefront of our defenses thus the first to fall under enemy fire, little though there has been, and utterly unable to reach you in the realm of they who mistrust us.  
I have tried you know, tried over and over again to reach out to you from here while you were there. The barrier prevents me from doing so as does the disquiet I remember in your eyes upon my greeting, and that is perhaps the most damning thing of all. To know that this land and the time spent apart has twisted the bond between us so, or rather to know that the events have twisted me and my will so much that I seem to have pushed you away. Yet I shall find no fault with your dwelling for I have wished to see you safe many times now and in a place where we are unable to enter I may yet see it. For I know that she, the Maia that made her home there, holds you dear so she will keep you safe.  
For years I have wondered though, you have not heard this question I’m sure yet I can ask it here in the safety of my own thoughts, did you ever deem us to be evil? Once I know you would have laughed, your summer sky blue eyes dancing with laughter as you laugh, yet now after all we did and may yet do… some days I hope you would say yes. That we are evil and past redemption yet other days… other days I crave to hear someone, anyone really but you specifically, say that no we are not. The Oath we swore has twisted us to the point where some days it seems nearly impossible to recognize each other yet I feel that may simply be due to it languishing for so long. The words twisting into the very cores of our beings until we seldom know which way is up or if we are even moving at all.  
I’ve heard about him, your Sinda, and I wish I could meet him now. Now while I know there is still something resembling sanity and myself lingering in my own skin. It is impossible though, I know that Thingol would never allow it not after my withholding the information about Alqualonde from him. Someday perhaps I shall see him and speak to him even if only in passing, I hope to long after this when the Oath is fulfilled one way or another. That way there is one less thing lying between us. Maybe you’ll even be there, a peacemaker hopefully unneeded but present all the same.

I remember seeing you there, white against the cool stones of Doriath. I’d tried desperately to get them to return the stone because this is a home, a safe haven against the darkness, yet it was all for nothing in the end. Had you tried to sway him? To convince Dior that turning the jewel over was wise? Perhaps or perhaps not. Seeing the frightened people behind you managed to pull me from the desperation and the blood lust that had settled into my bones. They deserved none of this and neither did you. In a rare moment of clarity I knew how to act. I lowered my sword allowing you and those with you to pass.  
Did you notice the ones I sent to follow you? The ones tasked to protect you and the innocents from the orcs and the like that scoured the land. Probably not. I’m sure by that point, seeing me wish so much fresh blood on my hands managed to smother any lingering regard you may have held for me. Even so I had to try. You were among the few that I had left who I named my family willingly though not freely. Nay never freely for I wished to spare you the dangers of being blood kin with murderers and kinslayers.  
You will never know how grateful I am that you didn’t try to read my mind right then. My defenses were so weak that you could have just passed through them and known just what sort of mangled and ruined thing I had become since we’d last seen each other. It pushed me to want to make sure you were able to reach safety if little else could be done for you by my hands. I do regret what happened with Dior and his family. Celegorm, Curufin, and Caranthir were never to engage him, would it have changed things? Probably not, yet maybe just maybe it would have and Dior and Nimloth would have survived.  
Their children were searched for you know. We’d have sent them to you if we’d found them, as your husband was one of their kin. It matters little now though, not at all really. Just so much ash on the wind, never to be given form again save perhaps some new form at a later time if even that. This too dashed my hopes of meeting your husband in a peaceful way. Time seems to be against us ever more now than it had been when we were young.

I’ve heard a few things during my time on the shore. Does that surprise you? My surviving when none of the others have. No? Well we always did seem to have a better idea of how the other was doing than most of the others, though we never did seem as close as Maedhros and Fingon. Still I’ve heard of the family you’ve built. I wanted to come see you as soon as I heard, but I know that my mind isn’t quite together enough for it. It’s hardly together enough for some of the musings I’ve been doing, and yet I can’t help it with so little to do now. I owe You by the way, for watching out for Celebrimbor while I could not.  
Ah there is another problem. My nephew, he resented us you know? He blamed the way he and Curufin parted on the oath, and in a way he was right. Yet every time I think of that I can’t help but think of the other relationships that were sundered because of that oath. Would things have turned out differently between us had it not lingered as a wall between us? Well you are happy, or content at any rate, and maybe it’s time I take up my weapons again. I’ve heard of a darkness rising. Neither among men nor among elves, but the one who lurk unnoticed have whispered it as has that which few can ever hear. Perhaps I shall give you a sign that I live still, I do owe you that much certainty after all even if I do little else.  
One thing that bothers me though is how often I think that no one else, save possibly Cirdan, knows what we’ve been through. You and I know the dense darkness that lingers in the world even now years after Morgoth’s fall and banishment yet I have kept apart to spare you, or so is my hope, from your husband’s ire. Not that such shall truly matter if I take the course my mind deems proper. Erenion may be a friend to us both then if you dare ask him for solace.

I’ve seen your home, from the outside only, many times. The golden leaves stir up memories of happier times. Do they remind you of the great golden tree, Laurelin? They remind me of such golden times now long since past. It is an ache that nothing can ease really. That I shall never truly accept such things back into my life and world. Even if I were allowed to, ignoring or perhaps forgiving the blood as once was offered to me, I’d still refuse for was it not their task to offer protecting a task that they took on willingly and yet failed.  
You love them though, and perhaps that is why I even dare to contemplate it at all.  
I only grieve that I can only offer you such brief glimpses of my continued survival. It seems you were right yet again, you and my brothers all, that I am made to endure and survive. I’d thought not, yet not even I will argue against such evidence. Someday perhaps, when you are alone I shall visit and we may speak, not now though. It is enough to hear fragments of you from Elrond, my heart’s child, and any other that is willing to share.  
Erenion is always willing to give me some information about you, you know. It’s really thanks to him that I can move about actually helping now. Still I miss our conversations about anything and everything that comes up. Does he share your burdens? Those that most name gifts yet are more akin to curses are heavy loads indeed, I should know for once I was your aid even if only a little. I’ve heard that the ring you are to be gifted with will help you control them better, but the price is they will be stronger. I hope that he helps you bear that burden now.

I was there when she was found. The agony on her face roused a flame within my heart, an anger so dark and vengeful that I easily understood why her sons wished to set out to slay more of the kindred of the ones who dared harm her so. I knew more intimately her pain though and the grief that her own kin would be feeling. Maedhros felt the same treatment, as did I though for longer than she and less than he. I tried to help at first, but I realized, perhaps after Elrond though he seemed so fervently in denial of it, that she would not recover here. The wounds had touched too deep, but once she made her decision others would need comfort. Elrond would have some here, with his children for a time, but also with Glorfindel and the rest of the house. You may need more than you will get.  
I heard your crying first, not the loud sobs that most would expect, but equally heartrending for the emotions behind them. The trees seemed to mourn equally though far more quietly, your doing I would guess. They seemed to guide me to you, as though I would have been unable to find you even now, and I wanted to smile at the surprise on your face. Surly you knew I would be here? How could I leave you to weather such profound grief? A grief I myself had felt. Aye we both had lost, but the loss of a child is so much different and crueler than any other.  
I held you without any regard to who may be watching or who may report my presence to your husband. My hand stroked through your hair like it had Ages before, when you came to me for comfort or even just to be held safely from the world. You spoke and cried, and I listened as I ever have sure that this was all that was needed for now.  
I spoke a little, listening and offering soft words in exchange as sure of your grief as I ever was of my own. You spoke of all that crossed your mind, fears and troubles all of it. Maybe I was less help than I used to be yet as I left while you were sleeping you seemed far less troubled. Even so I knew that I could not stay for long now lest we become attached to each other once more.  
Not even the Valar would get me to leave again were I to stay, and I could not do that to you when you have a good chance to go home.

I felt it, the destruction of the Ring. It seemed to echo, resonating in the very earth itself, leaving behind an ache and a wound that was in some ways tangible. It was that destruction that took away the last vestiges of power that the Valar had once given the world save only what we Eldar ones hold still in our beings. Still I knew it was time for most of the rest to leave. So I went there, to the shores near the Havens where the ship was bound to be docked. It occurred to me the irony of our places here.  
Now you were on the ship leaving while I stood on the shore watching you leave. It was like the first ships crossing over again only this time the Valar gave their permission and approval.  
Thoughts have been slowly taking shape of what to do with your wayward husband as well as the others left. I think I shall endeavor to get them there some day rather than allow them to fade away. A secret intention of my own now for if they refuse to simply take a ship… well that’s for another time, this is the time for goodbyes.  
You must sense me here somehow, for you turn to see me. I see the hope bright in your eyes and nearly cringe. No, this is not the ship that will carry me if indeed any will. The understanding that slowly takes over from the joy and hope is at once a condemnation and a gentle acceptance of the parting. I give you a single nod, and get one in return.  
Yes, this is goodbye maybe not for good but certainly for now.  
So goodbye my cousin and love.  
Goodbye and may the stars light your path home.


End file.
